Despite limitations from the lingering pandemic, organizers of local Friday fish fries say their weekly dinners are drawing long lines of customers eager for the annual offering.

The fish fries, which are mostly organized by churches as part of the Lenten tradition, are major fundraisers for local nonprofit causes. And from the looks of things, support for those efforts is far exceeding expectations.

Holy Rosary fish fry committee member Diane Grimes said their church and school’s annual fish fry served over 2,300 fish dinners and sandwiches in its first three weeks. That’s already 2/3 of the business they received for their whole six-week run in 2019.

Although the fish fry has been growing each year, Grimes said they didn’t necessarily expect this much turnout this year because the dinners are drive-thru only.

“People just want to get out. They’re tired of being at home,” Grimes commented. “Since we can’t have in-house dining, we set up a second drive-thru coming out of the activity center.”

Serving almost 800 meals in one evening is a logistical challenge, but Holy Rosary has refined its system of traffic control, cooks, food runners and ticket takers, requiring about 60 volunteers to help run the fish fry, Grimes said. Every family at the Catholic school in Warrenton helps make the event a success.

“You’ve just got to be organized. Communication is key,” Grimes commented. “The biggest thing is making sure people show up to work their shift.”

Last year’s fish fry raised $15,000 for Holy Rosary School despite COVID, and this year’s might well be on track to beat that. Grimes said it’s because of the community’s support that the fish fry is successful, and for that the school is thankful.

In Wright City, organizers of a relatively new fish fry supporting the Wright City Community Food Pantry say they’ve been blown away by the community turnout.

“It’s been going amazing. The community outpouring of support is nothing we could have ever imagined,” said coordinator Ramiz Hakim. “We doubled our order last week to keep up with demand. We ran out of fish a second time and we doubled our order again for the third week.”

In previous years, the Wright City community previously got its fish fry fix from Sunrise Church. But since that location closed, the food pantry decided to launch its own fish fry as a major fundraiser in 2020. Hakim said this is the first year it’s really gotten off the ground.

Wright Way Diner volunteered its space to host the fish fry this year, with several hours of prep work also being done at Wright City Church of the Nazarene each week. Hakim said it takes about 10 volunteers for the prep work and another 10 to 15 to work at the diner.

Every day the fish fry has been available, a line of customers has been out the door and down the block. Hakim said he was worried customers would get frustrated with the wait, but the people of Wright City showed their support.

“They’re pleasant, kind and understanding,” Hakim said. “It always surprises me how supportive Wright City is. ... Whatever the community is called for, they always step up.”